Imperial Tours’ China Luxury Travel Blog

The Naxi are one of China 's 56 recognized ethnicities, and although they have lived on the edge of the Chinese empire for centuries they have preserved many remarkable features of their culture. Some say the Naxi are descended from a group of people known in Chinese historical texts as the Qiang, whose homeland included parts of the Tibetan Plateau as well as the western areas of Sichuan and Yunnan . The situation is complicated as there is still a recognized Qiang ethnic minority